Tag acting

A few months ago I started listening to Crispin Freeman’s podcast, Voice Acting Mastery. Crispin has done tons of roles in both anime dubs and video games. I’m personally most familiar with him for his role as Winston in Overwatch and Itachi Uchiha in Naruto, but he’s also Alucard in Hellsing and prominent characters in Fate/Zero, Fate/Stay Night, and Young Justice.

Voice Acting Mastery is a podcast about learning the fundamentals of the craft of voice acting. It includes tips on everything from learning the craft to establishing a professional career to interviews with actors in the field.

The primary reason for my interest in this podcast is not of vocational purposes. Mostly, I want to learn how to use my voice to become different characters in both Dungeons & Dragons and my acting career (as a hobbyist and instructor). Also I’d like to be a better narrator for my own stories when I record them.

That said, much of the content of the podcast is irrelevant to me, so here’s the disclaimer. I don’t need to know how microphones work, I don’t need to look for an agent or anything technical or “business”-y about the field. I was mostly looking for tips on how to change the quality of my voice.

So I was a bit disappointed to find out that most voice acting roles are signed based on the natural speaking voice of the actor. I may be pulling this number out of thin air, because I can’t remember if Crispin said it or not, but I believe I remember something along the lines of “80% of your booked gigs will be booking you for the emotion you put into your real voice, not for having an amazing pool of voices to pick from”. This isn’t the podcast for that.

That isn’t to say it doesn’t have useful knowledge. Most of the tips he provides are useful for any professional in the creative fields. It’s also never a bad thing to hear about the personal experience from anyone trying to break into industries of this sort.

So with as many podcasts exist in the world right now, is this one worth listening to? Well, it depends. For somebody looking into becoming a voice actor, absolutely. This teaches so much valuable knowledge about what it’s like, it’s a good tool. For somebody like me that is only recreationally interested in the craft, it’s not that great. My recommendation would be to go through all the episodes (there are currently 134, and the pre-100 episodes are only 20 minutes long), look at all the titles, and if they don’t sound relevant, they probably aren’t. The interviews are cool to listen to, but typically Crispin brings on specific people to talk about specific things, so if you know you’re never going to do motion capture for a video game, you can probably skip the interview with the actress he brings on for it (though she is a lot of fun).

If nothing else, I’ve learned a lot about what I need to look for in my pursuit for utilizing different voices, so I at least have that to thank Crispin for. He’s also a great teacher, and since he lives in my area I might consider taking a class or two with him to get more direct instruction.

Genres is one of those games that is deceptively difficult because of how easy it is to explain. It’s not one of my best, simply because it allows for a lot of openness and there aren’t really any constraints. Despite that, it can be a lot of fun as long as the improvisers know the fundamentals of how it should be played.

This game is a scene game for a small team, so three or four works. It’s energy levels varied based on the suggestions, but often it can be on the higher end since it can get a little ridiculous. This is how the game is played. You get a suggestion of anything (I like ‘well known fairy tale or story plot’ for this one in particular), and then the improvisers build a scene based on that suggestion. Then, throughout the game, the ref calls ‘Freeze!’ and asks the audience for a new thematic suggestion. Often ‘genre’ works really well (it’s what the game is named, after all), but other suggestions can work, too. As soon as a new suggestion is picked, the actors continue their scene adopting the elements of that genre into their story. If Little Red Riding Hood suddenly becomes a western, the actors playing those iconic characters might start speaking in accents and pull out revolvers. Maybe people jump on horses and begin a chase scene. The key thing to remember here is that the original suggestion: the plot of the scene, should remain consistent. You’re still telling the story of Little Red Riding Hood, only the medium through which it is being told changes roughly every forty seconds.

If you’re familiar with the game, this is very similar to Eggs. The biggest difference is that instead of performing a given scene multiple different ways, you’re performing one scene that is constantly in flux. You aren’t just adapting to the suggestion, you’re applying that suggestion to the thing you’ve already made as you make it. In some ways it’s easier, because you’re not constrained by predefined actions or lines. But as I always say, creativity isn’t empowered by the lack of constraints, it’s hindered by it.

The fact that the character and the story is always concrete is probably the hardest part for my troupe in particular. It’s hard to move the scene and use the same characters when creating new ones is so much easier. It’s difficult to follow a plot structure in so many minutes while also hitting the key elements of whatever genre you’re fulfilling, and it’s for that reason that I don’t teach this game to beginning improvisers. (Start with Eggs. It’s the same idea, but it’s much easier, especially if your actors don’t have a firm grip on how to establish a scene with CROW.)

In order to really nail this game, it should also complete the story arc of whatever original suggestion you were given. It doesn’t need to end the same way as Little Red Riding Hood does, or any other story for that matter. In fact, I would argue that it shouldn’t, because humor often derives from subverting the conventional norms. This does mean that you have to tell this story in three to five minutes, which is why fairy tales and nursery rhymes work better than “Lord of the Rings“, but either way, it has the best ending when it has a natural conclusion, as opposed to the typical conclusion of improv scene games where you end it by referencing something that happened in the beginning.

Stand Bend Sit is one of those games that is really easy to explain, but actually playing it successfully can prove quite challenging. It requires a lot of coordination with the rest of your cast, but regardless of how well you know each other, everybody is going to end up confused in the end. My troupe has never gotten the hang of Stand Bend Sit. Again, it’s a simple game, but it’s really tough to nail. You’ll see why.

This is a high energy scene game specifically for three people (but can be modified for a fourth). Here’s the whole game: Construct a scene in which one person is standing, one person is bending, and another person is sitting. If one person changes their position, the others must change their position so that every position is always being fulfilled by somebody. With a fourth person, you would add ‘Lay’. Usually you get a suggestion of a location, but anything can work here.

Sounds easy, right? Only, as soon as one person starts standing up, the other two people will move to fill the gap, adding multiple seconds to get into the correct positions once more. It isn’t easy to make sure one of every position is fulfilled at all times, but what’s more is that in the context of the scene, these positions must also be justified. Why did one character stand up and make another person start bending?

One of the problems with this game is that it is very difficult to move a scene forward like this. You have no stage entrances and exits, and two of the three positions are low-energy, not conducive to making an audience laugh. You can’t very well move the scene from whatever the location is, because people have to be sitting and whatnot. You could, perhaps, jump in a weird clown car that allows for standing position, but what I’m getting at here is that it isn’t easy to establish and maintain a conflict.

The kicker here is that there isn’t anything this game brings to a stage that another game can’t do better. I classify this as a high energy game because this game always ends with people switching positions back and forth and confusing the entire scene (which, admittedly, can be hilarious). But games like Four Corners and Chain Murder Mystery can confuse the improvisers while entertaining the audience much more reliably and effectively. If you’re looking for a high energy scene game for a performance, this wouldn’t even make the Top 3.

Of course, it could simply be a case of practicing this game wrong. I’ve never seen it performed, and maybe there’s a piece I’m missing to truly understand it. As with all games, there is certainly quite a bit of fun to be had, but as far as “successfully performing for an audience” goes, this game falls short too consistently.

If my mind ever changes on this, I’ll be sure to edit it (or even make an entirely new post) to fix whatever I had gotten wrong or missed entirely.

One of the games that Whose Line is it, Anyway? is most famous for, Arms Through is sort of a gimmick game that I don’t play a lot, because it requires a few variables to be in place before you can even try it out. Now, when I explain it, I’m not going to explain how WLIIA plays it, because that’s a different environment than what most improv would provide.

Arms Through is a team hoop game with a varying energy level. It’s humor can derive from both the things that are done and the things that are said, so really it just depends on that specific game. The setup for the game is pretty simple. Four people get into two different pairs. One person from each pair folds their arms behind their backs, and the other person from that pair goes behind them and puts their own ‘arms through’ the gaps in their sides. Each pair in this game is one person in the scene, with the body of one person and the arms of the other. You get any suggestion at all, and the scene progresses as if it was two normal people doing it, if those people were excessively prone to touching their faces and generally being “handsy”.

So, why does this game not work well in all situations? Well, for obvious reasons, it requires you to know and trust the rest of your cast. IF you get two strangers to play this, they won’t be very comfortable with one another. You want the pair of people to work as a team, following hand gestures and all, but if they’re so uncomfortable they’re standing a foot apart from each other, their arms won’t even be long enough to accomplish anything, and any audience would practically be able to feel the discomfort that would cause. Another thing that I specifically have to consider is that I’m working with a lot of teenagers, and without really getting into it, I have to be careful because things can go from uncomfortable to sexual harassment really quick. (When considering this, I always make the pairs the same gender, but this doesn’t necessarily solve the problem.) Really, though, as long as the cast knows each other, these aren’t things anyone would have to worry about.

So, how do you actually play this game? Well, it really is a normal scene. It is the “body’s” job to allow the arms to be as involved in the scene as possible, and it’s the “arms'” job to be entertaining. Obviously moving around can be difficult because each person is actually two, but this game wouldn’t work with stage entrances and exits in any case. As a result of this, this game is often shorter than most, because having two people interact nonstop in one scene starts to get a little stale, even if the scene itself is entertaining.

Whose Line plays this as a gimmick, with Colin making Ryan eat awful concoctions and having him justify those things in the scene. There’s never any movement, and since they only have one body-arms pair, all the focus in the scene is given to them. In a conventional improv performance, however, improvisers almost never have props to use in any game, and it makes the game different each time you play it. I don’t like the way Whose Line plays it because it’s always done the same way, which isn’t in the spirit of improv, but to each their own.

World’s Worst is most easily described as an alternative to 185, where instead of making bad puns, you act out a joke. It is at its best played as a high energy group game, with very quick and short segments with at least six people participating.

There is basically nothing to explain with this game, really. All the improvisers stand in a line, and the ref gets a suggestion of a profession. Then, one by one, the improvisers step forward and do their best impression of the “world’s worst [suggestion]”. This continues until the improvisers have no more ideas, and a new suggestion is taken.

Let’s say your suggestion is doctor. You could step forward, pantomime being in an operating room (which can be done a number of ways), and then yell “Screwdriver!” in the same way a doctor would ask a nurse to hand them a scalpel or some other tool. Or, they could pantomime unplugging an ICU outlet in order to charge their phone (and yes, I realize that’s not how it works, but the audience will laugh anyway). You could also pantomime somebody playing the Operation board game. Throwing in a Doctor Who, Dr. Doom, or Dr. Horrible reference could be hilarious, but keep in mind that your audience may not know those characters.

This game is a lot harder than 185. In that game, all you have to do is come up with a punchline. The setup is all there. But in this one, you have to actually act. You have to establish Crow in less than five seconds just to set your joke up, and you have to do it without slowing the momentum of the game and the energy of the audience. This is why more improvisers makes this easier; you simply have more people to come up with jokes.

You can also bring in other improvisers to make short little scenes. Obviously, it will be hard to brief them on the joke you want to tell, so ideally you’d only want to do it if you just need a person there. This also works better the more familiar you are with your cast, because they will be able to play along with whatever your idea is easier. This can be hard, especially if you don’t know your cast, because something you do in the scene might prompt them to respond, and you run the risk of jeopardizing the setup to your joke if they don’t know what you’re trying to go for. In these instances, it is okay to whisper something to them quickly as you’re walking up to whatever your stage is. This is for entertainment, after all. You’re not going to be booed off the stage for quickly collaborating with your fellow actors.

The best way to practice this game is actually to practice other games in conjunction with 185. This is basically a much more advanced version of that game, and it functions the exact same way in a performance, so beginning actors should stick to coming up with jokes until they’re comfortable developing those mini scenes. Also, as a side note, this game is generally not as entertaining as 185, for whatever reason. In my experience, it’s more fun as an actor, but the audience doesn’t typically enjoy it as much as they would have liked 185.

And also, this comedy skit by Studio C does an amazing job illustrating the sort of things you should be doing with this game.

As I’m recalling this game and all the things that go into it, the first thing that comes to mind is the fact that it’s a pretty simple game; especially in regards to the ones that I’ve gone over in the last couple of weeks. But when I was thinking that, I also remembered that when I was first learning this game with me and my fellow inexperienced improvisers, this game was hard. We simply could not play it “successfully”, and though we loved it when it turned out well, we couldn’t make the entertainment consistent enough to risk putting it into a performance. That memory makes me truly realize how much I’ve learned in this field, because the thought of ‘not performing a game successfully’ isn’t even a concern I have when I’m performing these days.

Reminiscing aside, there’s a reason my troupe thought this game was hard, and that is because it demands lots of high energy and big action. Dialogue will kill you in this game. Replay Countdown is a scene-based team game, and it’s rule is very simple. First, perform a normal 3 minute scene. Then, perform that same scene in half the time: 1 minute and 30 seconds. Then, perform it again in 45 seconds. Then again in 20, then 10, then 5, until finally the actors condense that entire 3 minute scene into a 1 second scene.

As you can imagine, this game gets pretty hectic. And you can probably understand why dialogue doesn’t work in this game. Once you’re performing in under thirty seconds, you have to go so fast that you have to cut out so much dialogue it’s not even worth it. If you perform the scene using primarily big actions, however, such as large stage entrances and exits, you can convey those much more quickly.

And that’s actually pretty much it. This game also requires that you establish all of CROW, because without it, a 3 minute scene can’t work. So if you can perform one in that time frame using mostly big action, you’re golden.

Here’s a number of things you should keep in mind as you’re playing, however. First, you need a ref (preferably with a timer, as well), but here’s the key. You don’t actually need to time it. As long as the ref calls “scene” at a point that makes sense, the audience will believe the correct amount of time has passed. They’re looking for entertainment, after all. Nobody is going to say “Ah-ah-ah! It’s only been two minutes and forty seconds!” because that just kills the fun. So the time frame is malleable.

It’s so malleable, in fact, that you can start with any given time limit. All that really matters is that you cut the time frame in half every time. Here are some time slots that work well, depending on how long you want the starting scene to be.

Generally, 3 minutes is the best starting point because most improv games run from between 5-7 minutes, and you’ll get more time than you’d think in between scenes. Starting at 3min will generally make the game take around 7 minutes start to finish.

Here are some pro-tips that make the game a bit easier. A good thing to remember is that the game won’t be funny the first half. You’re just performing a normal scene initially, after all, so humor will be in short supply (but don’t try to force it in!). When performing the scene a second time, don’t cut out any dialogue. If you cut out the blocking and all the beats of the original scene (all the time where nothing is being done or said), you’ll be left with roughly half the time, and it will be right on target. So just do the same exact scene, only make things happen quicker without paraphrasing. The third time you perform it, that’s the time to start paraphrasing dialogue and having people enter at the same time. By the time the scene is less than 30 seconds long, you’ll have all actors on stage most of the time, trying to talk over each other, and the audience will love it.

If you’re playing this right, the last four times you perform this scene will make your heart rate go through the roof, and you’ll be out of breath by the time the game is over. Make sure it isn’t hectic the first two times you perform the scene, though! If the energy doesn’t ramp up as the game progresses, and instead remains consistently high, you’ll leave the audience exhausted!

But really, the main thing with this game is to just half fun and do big actions. As long as you can make those happen, it’ll be enjoyable for everyone.

Eggs is usually the first team game I teach to any group of aspiring actors. It’s a very simple hoop game that only involves acting how you are told, and thus is extremely easy. The more experienced the cast is with this game, however, the more you can do with it.

So, as I said this is a team game. Unlike others it requires exactly four people (unless you have the ref fill the “director” role, which I will get into). It’s a hoop game because every improviser has a very specific role in the game, and all they do is modify their role depending on what they are asked.

Another reason this is the first game I teach to people is because it has an established scene. Scripted? Only sort of, because it requires the audience to know the scene to be able to get the joke. The scene goes as follows, describing each role as a proper noun to make it easier to understand who is who.

DP: I don’t care. <Takes the bowl and drinks from it. Promptly falls to the floor, apparently dead.>

<EM runs slightly stage left, grabs a pantomime phone.>

EM: Doctor, doctor! Come quick!

<Doctor walks on from upstage left.>

Doctor: What seems to be the problem?

<EM points to the Dead Person. Doctor walks over and checks pulse.>

Doctor: He/She’s dead.

When you’re playing Eggs, this scene must be performed to “set the stage”, if you will. These lines and actions must be performed verbatim in order for the scene to do well. Once this scene is performed, the Director (which can be the ref or another improviser) calls “Cut!” The Director does not have preset lines. You can give the Director any personality you choose: Anything from Gordon Ramsey to kindly grandmother. They can say anything they want (I usually go with something along the lines of “That was the most awful thing I’ve ever witnessed. You’re lucky I’m desperate.”) Whatever they say leads into having the Director have them perform the scene again, only “This time as painters, teachers, clowns, etc.” (The Director can come up with these suggestions on their own, and they can be anything from objects, to emotions, to occupations, to genres, but it looks scripted if you don’t get these suggestions from the audience.)

When the actors perform the scenes, they must change their original actors to make sense with their new suggestions. The Egg Maker can now be painting something instead of making eggs, or making a lesson plan, or juggling. Here’s the key, though. Whatever the suggestion, you must make it different from the original scene.

For this scene, I usually grab very specific suggestions in order. This is because as the scene progresses, I want the improvisers to make the scene more and more different, while making sure the whole audience understands what is going on. In a typical game, four different scenes will be played. The first change shouldn’t manipulate any of the dialogue, but the third change can be a very different scene. The suggestions I grab (in order) to help make this happen the way I want is emotion, genre, and occupation. Performing depressed can make the scene the same but different, but making everybody painters will change the entire story progression.

As improvisers get more experienced, they should be able to take similar suggestions and perform differently to accommodate how late into the game they are. Performing with the suggestion “Depressed” when it’s the first scene change should look very different when it’s the last scene change. This goes for any suggestion, and grabbing the suggestions in a specific order will inhibit the actors’ ability to learn how to do that, but it’s useful for instructional purposes.

There are different versions of this game, as well. Bus Stop is the same game only with a longer static scene, and Movie Director is the same only with no static scene. Typically I teach this one because it’s easier to teach and learn than the other two. It’s fun, it’s easy, but most importantly: it’s simple.

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A Daily Dose of Derailment

Hey, my name is Kollin Cooley. Writer, improv actor and teacher, and college student living in Southern California.

If you’ve come in search of an interesting blog where you learn valuable things, I’m afraid you’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere. I’m impressed, considering you’re on the internet where there are no turns.

But now that you’re here, you may as well stay awhile and be disappointed with what you’ve found.

At least the only substantial amount of alliteration is in the title, so you won’t have to worry about that.

Note: all short stories here are first drafts. If I have edited them, I won’t have updated the post beyond typos.

You can contact me at kollin.cooley@gmail.com.

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